Those of us who awoke before dawn Friday to watch the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony streaming live from Pyeongchang, South Korea, were afforded the chance to view the extravaganza without the banter of announcers trying to be fun and informative.

What we lost – in the absence of production notes or a program – was a clear sense of what everything in the spectacle was meant to symbolize.

The international feed offers some titles on screen but presents only the sound heard in the newly constructed $100 million Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium that will be used exactly four times. (This was the first.) And it doesn't translate speeches, which may or may not be in English.

So there are things about what we saw that we won't know for sure until NBC puts it on in prime time Friday night with co-hosts Mike Tirico and Katie Couric oohing and aahing that the oiled-up and shirtless flag bearer from Tonga, last seen in Rio de Janeiro two years ago, was back in front of his country's delegation, oiled up and shirtless again.

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Then again, the whole thing took only about 2 hours, 15 minutes, and that includes the 50-minute parade of nations, so it's not a terrible trade-off.

The parade gave viewers one reminder of something people all around the globe have in common: the compulsion to hold up mobile phones and stare at their screens no matter the occasion or what's going on around them.

A lot of fireworks were deployed. (At least one assumes they were deployed. After special effects were used in Beijing in 2008 to fake some of the pyrotechnics, sans pyro, one no longer can be sure.) And from the safe remove of 6,500 miles, they could be enjoyed.

Just 50 miles from the Demilitarized Zone, with North Korea on the other side, who knows how welcome loud booms accompanied by flashes of light are?

So the through story of the ceremony seemed to be that these kids find a crystal ball in the snow and decide to run away from home.

They trudge past windmills, dodge huge chunks of falling ice and wind up in a cave. Natural gas or something has induced hallucinations such as floating lights that form the shape of a giant tiger that turns into a huge puppet soon accompanied by other creatures. One seems to be a dragon. Is that a reindeer? Oooh, a butterfly.

The kids' parents must be worried sick. Did any of the kids even leave a note to say where they were headed?

Plus one of the imps is clutching a stuffed animal. Yeah, that's going to do well in the snow. Maybe they can throw it at the dragon and make their escape.

But first everyone pauses as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach are introduced, take their seats and shake hands with people seating nearby.

How in the world did they not arrive on time?

At least they showed up early enough for some drumming and dancing, a sort of marching band without a band, and the arrival of the Republic of Korea flag carried by some former South Korean Olympians and a golf coach.

Then a children's choir sang the host country's national anthem, keeping their winter hats on, which was disconcerting but sensible even with temperatures rising to 40 or so.

The athletes began to stream in, starting as always with Greece and ending with the host nation and archrival North Korea coming in under a unified flag, pretending everything was hunky-dory and not DEFCON 2, with the rest of the delegations entering in alphabetical order.

In Korean, that meant the United States came in 28th of 91 nations, about 15 minutes into the grand march accompanied by Psy's 2012 earworm "Gangnam Style."

Many nations wore tastefully practical garb, no different than one might see at any ski lodge. The United States' official uniform included fancy cowboy gloves with fringe that wouldn't be gaudier if replaced by a dangling price tag. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife waved down from the stands.

The Russians, entering earlier, weren't allowed to bring their nation's flag because they cheated four years ago when they hosted the last Winter Games in Sochi.

It doesn't take much imagination, however, to picture Russian TV doing some Chinese fireworks-type effects work on the video to paint one in for local viewers, just to be sure they know the so-called "Olympics Athletes from Russia" are from, you know, Russia.

By the time we got to rejoin the runaways, they're on a boat turning light or snow into three-dimensional ice they can use to create things.

Going through what looks like doorways, some of the youngsters emerge as adults. One seems to be a doctor, another a dancer. All that's clear is that the future will have some awesome advances in holographic technology.

But now it was time for some speeches. And while not understanding what was being said, there was a nagging question of why the stadium announcer had to keep mentioning IOC boss Bach was an Olympic fencing champion in 1976.

We got it the first time. Isn't being IOC president enough? Who's so insecure, it's considered important to repeatedly mention something you did decades ago?

When Mike Ditka is introduced somewhere, one reference to coaching the 1985 Bears is usually enough. If that. It's not as though anyone who cares would be unaware of that fact.

Bach was kind enough to thank the thousands of volunteers helping out in Pyeongchang. It is always good form when running a multibillion-dollar international endeavor to thank the unpaid labor force.

Observing that athletes from North Korea and South Korea entering together "sends a powerful message of peace to the world," Bach almost made us forget how the Vladimir Putin-hosted Sochi Winter Olympics were hailed as symbol of the world coming together in peace not long before Putin seized Crimea.

Bach did manage an allusion to the Russian cheating in Sochi. "You can only really enjoy your Olympic performance if you respect the rules and stay clean," he said, and it's a safe bet he never would have medaled in fencing had he landed only glancing blows such as that.

After the singing of John Lennon's "Imagine," the runaways returned to wave goodbye to what seemed to be computer-generated birdies.

A thousand points of light formed the shape of a skier, and some choreographed skiing with torches on a nearby mountain looked as if it could be a James Bond chase scene until the emergence of Olympic rings iconography.

That was the cue to bring in the Olympic flag, carried by more former South Korean Olympians along with some young hopefuls, then the lighting of the Olympic cauldron with some flaming, rising, long and tall apparatus.

Throw in some more fireworks, sparks and such, and it was time to go home, at least until prime time in the United States and morning in South Korea.